


The Very Bad, No Good Trial Of 1779

by LittleWritingRabbit, vanity_of_vanities



Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American Revolution RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Everything Goes Wrong, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Tragic... or not depending on how many chapters you read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-07 10:37:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 13,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16852468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleWritingRabbit/pseuds/LittleWritingRabbit, https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanity_of_vanities/pseuds/vanity_of_vanities
Summary: "Your hands protect the flamesFrom the wild winds around youIcarus is flying too close to the sunAnd Icarus's life, it has only just begunThis is how it feels to take a fallIcarus is flying towards an early grave"- BastilleBased on a prompt by @Phocion on tumblr, who said "what if John and Alex were caught doing something that passed the boundaries of friendship and things led up until it reached a court martial" and I ran with the idea.





	1. The Cardinal Rule

**Author's Note:**

> Rest assured that most of this probably couldn't happen historically, but I took some liberties to make it more tragic. Before the story, I should give warnings for period-typical homophobia and slurs, some poorly-described canoodling, (completely unfounded) accusations of sexual assault, discussions of death, and like… sacrificing yourself to save someone else? It’s probably not as bad as I’ve made it sound here, but I don’t want there to be any surprises. 
> 
> If you do want it to be *really* tragic, just read the first chapter, because it gets lighter after that :)

The poorly-decorated guest-room was so deathly quiet that Hamilton wanted to scream. How long had it been? Two full days perhaps? It had been a Saturday, the day all hell broke loose, and now Monday night had fallen like a knife in a gunfight outside the window, so he supposed it had been two full days already. The very thought made him feel sick with dread. Surely they had decided his fate by now? He hated not knowing, despite his terror of what there was to know. 

He ran a hand over his face, moving for the first time in what felt like an eternity. He had been lying on the guest-bed, listening as well as he could to the muffled conversations in other parts of the house at least since they had brought him a midday meal, and hadn’t touched the supper Tilghman had deposited on the desk without a glance in his direction. The fact was, when he wasn’t feeling numb and frozen, he was feeling horror like snakes in his stomach, and he wasn’t sure what was worse. 

Perhaps the worst thing was that this was all his fault. He had broken the cardinal rule. 

It had been Saturday evening, an opportunistic Saturday evening to be sure. As General Washington and his staff were staying at the residence of Henry Laurens, it was to be expected that the senior Laurens would invite His Excellency for dinner, and that Washington’s Life Guard would accompany him. As the lack of a General meant a general lack of supervision and tasks for the night, the other aides decided that this would be the perfect Saturday evening to retire to one of the local Philadelphia taverns for dinner. Hamilton and Laurens each had letters to write, and, quite frankly, after entertaining his father all day Laurens was in no mood to do any further entertaining at a tavern, so they elected to stay put.

With the other aides departed and the house to themselves for at the very least two hours, Laurens and Hamilton took the opportunity to retire to their upstairs room, lock the door, and kiss until they were panting. They had fallen into bed, atop the covers, with absolutely no intention of sleeping. 

And it was in this state, Hamilton atop Laurens, momentarily distracted by his dear boy’s pleased whispering in his ear, that the cardinal rule was broken.

The rule was this: _don’t ever get caught._

But this cardinal rule did not count on two things happening. The first of these was that Richard Kidder Meade would actually remember to bring his spare key with him to the tavern. The second was that Tench Tilghman would forget his knapsack, which contained his money, in the bedroom he shared with the rest of the aides-de-camp. 

Thus the rule was broken when Meade, Tilghman, and McHenry returned to their quarters to retrieve the knapsack, leaving Harrison to guard their table at the tavern. Meade made it to the second floor landing first, his footsteps muffled by a certain pleased whispering, and unlocked the door. 

After the click of the key, there was a moment of terrible silence in which Hamilton’s attentions shifted from the friend beneath him to the one standing in the doorway with a look of disgusted horror on his face. 

“Meade,” he said softly, as one talks to a spooked horse. Evidently some part of his mind still hoped that there was something to be saved in this situation, as if Meade didn’t clearly see where Laurens’s hand was still rather firmly grabbing the muscle of Hamilton’s arse, or the fact that this was happening whilst Hamilton’s breeches were more-or-less around his knees, or their lack of cravats, or any other number of things. 

“Lord Mercy,” said Meade.

“Meade?” called Tilghman from the first floor, “Is everything alright?”

“God help us,” said Meade, louder. 

Hamilton unfroze, squirming back into his breeches and throwing a blanket over Laurens’s lap. “Meade, please don’t-”

“I cannot-” Meade steadied himself against the doorframe.

“Kidder please-”

It was too late. The rule was broken. Tilghman and McHenry arrived in the doorway, their expressions falling in perfect unison as Hamilton finally managed to pull up his trousers. Laurens was still staring at the intruders in shock. 

“Lord Mercy indeed,” whispered McHenry. 

“Trousers,” said Tilghman. “Both of you.”

Hamilton threw Laurens his trousers and buttoned up his own. It felt like seeing an explosion, the moment of shock before the sound and shrapnel hit you. 

“Downstairs,” said Tilghman, as nobody else seemed to want to take control of the situation. “Meade, McHenry, keep them in the study, I’ll pay the tavern-keeper.” He retrieved his satchel and retreated downstairs. Hamilton heard the door slam behind him. 

“Come along,” said McHenry, turning towards the stairs and looking shocked. Hamilton and Laurens filed after him silently. Meade followed, closing the door behind him. 

“The General will be back by nine,” said Meade, to nobody in particular. 

“Sit,” said McHenry, indicating two chairs. Laurens and Hamilton sat. 

The ticking of the clock competed for volume with the pounding of Hamilton’s heart. It was evident that no one knew what was supposed to be done in such a situation. McHenry looked out the window towards the road, as if watching for Washington’s arrival an hour early, while Meade attempted to complete some paperwork before giving up. 

“Alexander,” breathed Laurens, low enough that only he could hear. “They’re going to hang us.”

“We don’t know that,” Hamilton whispered. 

“Alexander, my father-”

“Nothing is certain,” Hamilton shot back.

“There’s no way out this time,” Laurens breathed, terror evident in his face. He was seizing the arms of his chair with such force that his knuckles were white, his face pale and drawn. Hamilton wanted to protect him, to reach out to him, or kiss him, but with the other aides in the room he doubted he would be allowed to move out of this chair. 

The terror of what would happen next finally hit Hamilton when the General returned. Hearing Meade attempt to explain what he had seen had cemented the discomfort - “Sir we found them… bread-and-butter fashion, if you take my meaning.” The General did not. “Convivial society.” He still did not. “In amorous congress, sir.”

Washington looked made of ice as he stated that they would be confined to separate rooms until a decision was made about how to proceed. Hamilton was locked into the downstairs guest-room, a badly-decorated little place with plain walls and dead flowers. He remained there for the next two days, sick with worry and cursing his own ineptitude. How dare he ever think they could be safe together? He had been in danger ever since their first weeks together as aides-de-camp, in danger as long as Laurens held his affections, but he would never have it any other way. Laurens had melted a heart he had otherwise hoped to keep frozen, and as much danger as that placed the two of them in, he couldn’t imagine it differently. A world without Laurens’s smile, his late-night discussions of strategy and mythology and music, his kisses and poetic sentiments… that would be a tragic world indeed.

It had taken long enough for Hamilton to realize what must happen. He imagined the coarse fabric of a noose. He wondered how long his consciousness would remain after the fall to torment him. In the middle of such melancholy thoughts, something tapped at the window. Hamilton remained on the bed, staring at the ceiling. The tapping sounded again, slightly louder. Hamilton crossed the room and opened the window, revealing the pale countenance of none other than-

“William North?”

“I haven’t much time,” said North, by way of a response, “The sentry passes by this window once every six minutes so I must be brief.”

“How did you know?” Hamilton asked, cutting to the point of his confusion before North could confuse him further.

North sighed. “The news is all around camp, it’s spreading like wildfire. Meade mentioned it to McHenry in the infirmary and it continued on from there.”

“How bad?”

“The men… they’re calling for a hanging,” whispered North. “They’re saying that if you are shown the same mercy as Enslin it speaks only to the General’s tolerance for such… interactions.”

Hamilton swore quietly. “I’m assuming you had more to tell?”

“Laurens is being held in the guest-room directly above yours, so I cannot reach him, but I should like you to know that the Baron intends to support you as well as he-”

“He cannot do that,” Hamilton interrupted. 

“What?”

“As much as I am grateful that he would put himself in such a position to help us, the Baron cannot compromise his own freedom for our sakes. I would rather he support Laurens after the fact.”

“After the fact…?”

“After the court-martial.”

“What about yourself? Hamilton?” North’s worried expression disappeared for a moment and then reappeared in the window. “Hamilton?”

“Is it the sentry?” Hamilton asked.

“Perhaps, but, what of yourself?” North hissed. 

“No time for that now, you must head back,” Hamilton moved to close the window. 

North blocked it with his hand. “Be safe,” he said. Hamilton found that he had no reply. 

As soon as North and the sentry were out of sight once more, he opened the window and looked out, turning to gaze up the front of the building to where Laurens was imprisoned above him. Six minutes. Hamilton took a deep breath and hoisted himself onto the windowsill, holding himself upright against the top of the frame. There was some decorative brickwork between the two floors which stuck out just enough for a handhold in a desperate situation, and a desperate situation it was.

Careful not to cause any loud noises, Hamilton reached for the bricks above him, and pulled himself up so as to be standing with one foot shoved precariously over each top hinge of the downstairs shutters. From there he could just barely reach the bottom sill of Laurens’s window. He placed one foot on the brickwork and reached up just enough to tap on the windowpane. 

In the minute it took for Laurens to open the window in confusion, Hamilton’s arms had started to shake, so it was quite arduous for him to hoist his torso up and onto the windowsill while Laurens stared in shocked silence. 

“Alex?”

“John, I don’t have long, the sentry will be back around momentarily, but I had to see you.” Perhaps it wasn’t just from the climb up that his voice was shaking. 

“Alex, I’ve heard nothing, what the hell is going on?” as John lit a candle Hamilton could see the tracks of tears down his face that matched the prickling at the corners of his own eyes. 

“There’s a court-martial tomorrow, the camp knows, they’re calling for a double hanging,” the words spilled out, each sounding worse than the last. 

“Then we run,” said John, “We run away, just us, I’ve no notion of where but-”

“When? When the sentries catch us? When the army apprehends us? When there is a search party out because morale is tenuous and we can’t risk further deserters over qualms with the General’s morals?”

“Alright, then we fight,” said John frantically, “We duel anyone who would come between us-”

“The whole damned world would come between us!”

“Then what do we do?” John exclaimed as helplessly as Alexander felt. 

“You’ll attend the court-martial,” said Hamilton, “You’ll attend the hanging. You’ll have the support of the Baron, North reassured me. You’ll go to South Carolina and never stop until your battalion is approved, you’ll outlive the war, you’ll pursue whichever studies you wish, and you’ll never stop fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves.” Hamilton gave a shuddering sigh. “And I hope perhaps you will remember me once in a while.”

John’s words caught in his throat. “And you… Alex, what of you?”

Hamilton’s eyes betrayed him, blinking back a frustrated, terrified sob. “I’m sorry John. I can’t think of any other way.”

“Alex no!” He dropped to his knees, eye level with Alexander. “Alex please, there has to be another way! You cannot just leave me like this!”

“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry,” it sounded pathetic but Hamilton didn’t know what else to say. “They need you, alright? This war, this country… your family.”

“They don’t count!” John sobbed. “None of them count! I only want you by my side, please, please don’t do this!”

“Washington needs your father’s support,” Hamilton breathed. “The aides need you. Your battalion needs you-”

“They need you too!”

“For what, paperwork?” Hamilton laughed bitterly between sobs, “I’ve never tied myself down, John. I’ve never had the kind of family you have. But I’ve always played the rake, and if I play it right, they’ll believe that I…” he sighed, “That I took advantage of you. Your name will be cleared.”

“Don’t you dare!” John pressed his forehead against Alexander’s getting hot, angry tears on his cheeks. “You cannot disgrace the love I bear for you like that!”

“I have to! It is the only way to save you!”

“If that is my salvation I don’t want it!”

“I’ll not have you die because of my carelessness!” the sound of someone opening a door sounded outside, a brief intrusion of the outside world onto their grief. 

“I’ll not have you die alone!” 

“You haven’t a choice,” said Hamilton, very decisively for a man covered in tears with half his body hanging out a window. 

“Goddamn,” Laurens’s voice cracked. He turned away, stood up. 

“I know.” The sound of the sentry talking with someone around the corner of the house reached the window. “I… I have to go,” it was the last thing Hamilton wanted to do, but still he shifted on the windowsill so as to be able to slide down to the brickwork below. “I love you,” he said.

“Alex wait!” John rushed back to the window and kissed Alexander, hard, with a desperation that nearly knocked him off the window. Alexander kissed him back, trying to memorize the softness of John’s hands on his face, his lips, the way his pomade smells like roses. He imagined a world where such court-martials never happened, where they could be like this forever, what the hell, even a world where they could be married. He imagined arriving, hand-in-hand, after a day of work, sitting around the fire and discussing science and mythology and music. Perhaps they would get a cat. He had the distinct feeling that any animals would probably prefer Laurens’s company to his, but he wouldn’t mind if they could simply share an armchair and he could watch his lover playing with their cat as the firelight shone across his face. Such a domestic scene which he had never (and now would never) experience made him sob harder so he had to pull away from John’s kiss. “Please, stay,” John whispered. “I can’t,” Hamilton slipped further from the windowsill, regaining his footing on the brickwork below. “Promise me you won’t forget me!” he whispered through his tears to the window. 

“Screw you - I love you - I won’t forget, I swear on my life I won’t!” John choked out. Hamilton lowered himself to the level of his own window, hearing footsteps from the corner of the house. “Alex? Alex!”

He closed the window just as the sentry rounded the corner. He could hear the man yelling: “Quiet, you!” towards John’s window, heard the crack of a stone thrown against the brickwork, and then John closed the window and the world was quiet. 

Hamilton curled up beneath the window and sobbed until his chest ached. 

***

“We call to order the court-martial of Lieutenant Colonels Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens, on charges of sodomy-”

_I would put up green wallpaper in the study,_ Hamilton thought, _and I’d put a little plant with flowers on the desk, and likely it would die, but John knows something about plants, so he could teach me to grow them._

“-We now call upon Lieutenant Colonel Richard Kidder Meade as a witness-”

Laurens was breathing so shakily that when he moved his hands, bound together, to rest them on the table, he knocked an inkpot to the floor. 

“I was returning to retrieve Tilghman’s funds for paying for dinner, you understand, and I remembered the key, which I thought was a stroke of luck, but-”

“Yes, but what did you see?”

_It takes two witnesses to properly confirm allegations of sodomy,_ thought Alexander, _McHenry and Tilghman only saw myself and Laurens getting dressed, but with the riotous state of the army and Washington’s need to show discipline around Congress, they will likely count them as witnesses to avoid complication._

_But oh I would wake up early on Sunday mornings and make him eggs,_ he thought, _because I’m not certain he knows how to cook. He would come down to the kitchen and we would eat together, and go on a walk, and attend church together. It would be nice to hear his singing voice beside me._

“And they were engaged in this… fornication… when you entered the room?”

“They were, sir,” said Meade quietly.

_We could name the cat Celia,_ thought Hamilton, and he almost wanted to laugh. 

“- what does his Excellency General Washington have to say on the matter?”

_And in this world with no repercussions, we would be wed. He would look so dandy in a white coat. McHenry would read a poem. I would invite my father_ \- Hamilton felt ready to cry once more.

“- have always been the most laudable aides, so it is with great disappointment that I learn of this behaviour, and with a heavy heart that I must enforce the consequences -”

_We would have a library, with books from all over the world. Gilbert could bring us books from France -_

“We now call upon the accused, if they have a defense to make on their own part-”

“Sir? May I interrupt?” it was Henry Laurens. Try as he might, Hamilton couldn’t bring his mind to imagine this man walking his Laurens down an aisle, in any reality. “I would like to say a word in defense of my son, who has always been upstanding in his upholding of both legal and moral standards. I find it hard to believe that a man so dedicated to acting the right, as well as so dedicated to his wife, would consent to such an action.”

His… _wife_?

A little gap broke in Hamilton’s numbness to let the terror and rage back in again. _Wife_? Laurens had a _wife_? He found it difficult to imagine the man who had declared his love while he hung off the side of a building the previous night marrying a woman. He himself couldn’t have been just a wartime dalliance… could he?

Whatever the case, this was just one more person who needed Laurens. The plan was unchanged. It was time to play the immoral scoundrel.

“He consented enough when I pushed him,” said Hamilton, giving his best sullen look at the assembled officers. 

“Do you mean to say that you acted this way towards him without his approval?”

“What does it matter?” Hamilton curled his lip, “It’s over with. I had him.”

“Is this true, Lieutenant Colonel Laurens? Were you pushed to this action against your will?”

Laurens stared at his bound hands on the table before him, breathing heavily. _Please_ , thought Hamilton. _Just let me clear your name, and I will have done enough._

“Condemn him if this is true!” Henry Laurens exclaimed, pointing towards Hamilton. “Is it?”

“Yes,” John whispered.

“Sirs, I do not think this is a case of mutual intentions, it is instead the case of one officer accosting another. It is proposed that the execution sentence required in such a case be passed upon Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton, and Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens be acquitted of all charges. I shall call a vote to decide-”

Hamilton looked over to where Laurens was gasping in terror, inkpot still on the floor. He wished this wasn’t his last picture of his lover. He recalled instead lazy early mornings, when Laurens’s hair was disheveled and the sun shining too bright in his eyes. _We would have those mornings for the rest of our lives,_ he thought, as the vote was conducted. _We would decorate the room with little paintings and a bed with a big, soft quilt._

“-do hereby find Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton guilty-” _my cooking likely includes too much spice for him, I shall have to learn some new recipes,_ “of the detested crime of sodomy-” _we both work so hard I assume we shall be up far too late, but at least we could share a study,_ “and sentence him to hang by the neck until dead-” _we would host dinner parties with the other aides, invite the General even._

Someone shoved him roughly to his feet. From across the room Hamilton caught a glimpse of Laurens attempting to look brave, his eyes fixed so solidly on Hamilton it was like nothing could harm him. But then the rest of the officers stood, obscuring his vision, and in any case he was being marched out of the courtroom. 

There was a gallows in one of the town squares, he had seen it, a large proper one with a platform and a lever and an enclosed space underneath where the doctor could declare you dead after the fact. He couldn’t see Laurens. Where was his Laurens?

They entered the square. People were yelling. The aides stood at the front of the crowd, McHenry slightly to the side. Presumably he would be the one to pronounce Hamilton dead, which seemed cruel. Lafayette stood slightly apart as well, under a tree at the edge of the square. He was sobbing into a handkerchief, his nose bright red. Tilghman looked at the ground. Meade shivered in the cold, still as shocked as he had been two days ago. 

“Where’s Laurens?” Hamilton heard, from somewhere in the crowd. 

“He’s at the house they say, in a fit of melancholy,” said someone else, perhaps North. 

“Can he be blamed really? That’s an awful ordeal to have happen.”

“This whole affair is awful.”

The drums followed Hamilton like an impending hurricane. He ascended the stairs, wondering how far down they would drop him. He wasn’t terribly heavy, nor was the rope terribly long, so it wasn’t likely to be a quick snap and then darkness, and his head would surely stay on. He would probably suffocate. He wondered if anyone would be kind enough to pull his legs to make it faster. 

“Any last words?” asked the hangman, looking exactly the textbook picture of a hangman (black hood, bad teeth, etc.) as he looped the rope around Alexander’s neck. He would be getting Hamilton’s uniform after his death. Hamilton wished his uniform was in a better state - he might’ve been able to bribe the man to give him a quicker death. 

Hamilton stared out at the crowd. He had thought of his death often enough, certainly, and Death had nearly caught up with him enough times, but he had never prepared a speech. The noose scratched at the places where Laurens’s hands had once held him, where his lips had once kissed. 

“HANG YOU ALL, I LOVED HIM!” Hamilton yelled. 

The hangman pulled the lever, and he fell from sight. 

***

John Laurens had had a long day. The morning had been consumed by a meeting of the South Carolina Society for the Abolition of Slavery, while the afternoon was filled with a meeting of the Scientific and Naturalist Society, where he had finally proposed the idea he had been harbouring for a while now: a public school which would teach science to the children of Charleston and the surrounding area. After the debate that necessarily ensued, he was already late for dinner, and was only made later by the appearance of a guest who wished to speak with him. Some young fellow by the name of William Clark, who was so full of ideas that Laurens invited him to dinner for Wednesday. 

Thoroughly delayed, he rushed to the bank to pick up wages for Hopkins, the cook, which he didn’t mind so much as it was a reminder that he had formally secured the status of Hopkins and his wife and sons as free citizens within the past year. 

It was as he was walking home that he heard it however - the dreaded rumours. 

The rumours, as he collectively referred to them as, had come and gone over the past six years since the end of the war, but it was never nice to hear them. This was in part because they were so false, but also because it drew his memory back to a time he would rather remember fondly, and not ruined by its terrible end. 

“That’s him,” said one of the men behind him. 

“Who? Laurens?” asked the other. 

“Yeah, him. Did you hear about his time in the army?”

“What, that some officer tried to… ahem… take advantage of him?”

“Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard.”

“Why didn’t he fight back?” asked the second man, “You know… push ‘im off or something?”

“I dunno, coward probably,” said the first. 

Laurens sped up. _You can’t fight everyone in Charleston,_ he reminded himself. _No matter what they say, sometimes you have to just go home and eat dinner._

He opened the door and let himself in. 

“Papa?” called a voice from down the hall. 

“Frances!” he called back, feigning a smile. “I am SO sorry to keep you waiting my dear! I was just caught up in discussion with one William Clark, a young fellow who has an interest in the natural sciences.”

“I’m sure he does, but can he draw THIS?” Frances appeared around the corner, holding up a pencil sketch of a magnolia flower with all the parts labelled. Laurens had to admit, she was better than he had been when he was twelve.

“Did you do this just today?” he asked, hanging up his hat. 

“Yes, and I’m learning all about plants, it’s quite riveting,” she said. 

“A good word, riveting,” he said, fishing Hopkins’s wages out of his coat pocket. “I shall have to compliment your tutor.”

“Not until you’ve eaten, please, it’s been _forever_ ,” said Frances, leading him into the dining room, where Hopkins was bringing in the dinner dishes. 

“Dear Mister Hopkins, what would we do without you?” Laurens asked.

“You might be hungry perhaps?” Hopkins suggested. 

“Well said,” said Laurens, “And I’ve this for you as well,” he held out the wages.

“Thank you Mister Laurens,” Hopkins pocketed them. “And my boys would like to inform you that they have some drawings of birds for you.”

“Gracious,” said Laurens, pulling up a chair for himself, and one for Frances, “I shall have a veritable scientific journal of my own if you all keep on like this!”

“Well that doesn’t sound too bad,” said Frances, cutting up a potato, “We could all illustrate for it, and as Mister Clark to join us.”

“A capital idea,” Laurens smiled, “But that might have to wait until we’ve a little more time on our hands. For the moment we can paper the study with them, how does that sound?”

“Good,” said Hopkins.

“Brilliant,” said Frances.

“Now I’d better get home,” said Hopkins, “Is there anything else you’ll need?”

“You’re too kind,” said Laurens, “This is all fine. Do have a good night.”

“Goodnight,” said Hopkins.

“Goodnight,” said Frances.

They finished their dinner, Laurens attempting to be enthusiastic in his discussion of some novel or other with Frances, though it felt forced. They climbed the stairs in the dark, Frances leading the way with a candle, and she dressed for bed. Laurens bid her goodnight, even though the novel on her nightstand indicated that she would be up for a while more. Sometimes Laurens wondered if he had missed some scholarly streak in Martha that had produced such a little academic, but whatever the case, Frances made dinnertime discussions quite animated. 

He retired to his bedroom, spending a few minutes lighting a fire in the hearth, and then undressed for bed. The light of his candle reflected in the glass of the window, almost like a ghost from his past. 

John paced across the room and opened the window, letting the nighttime breeze blow over his face, over all the places Alexander’s hands and lips had once touched softly. Sure, he had come to enjoy the unexpected domesticity of his life after the war, but he so would have preferred to share it with the man he loved. Alexander had spoken of dividing one’s heart, a part for their cause and their country, a part for the other aides, and a part for Laurens and Laurens only. Laurens could only imagine that his heart was divided similarly, but what happens when you lose someone who held such a large part of your heart? It was like missing a limb, missing an eye, missing a way of seeing the world. 

Some days - the worst days - he thought that Alexander must have it better. Death must be less lonely, have less rumours, less endless nights when one would give anything to roll over and see the sleeping face of the one he loved beside him. In death he wouldn’t be halfway through an argument with some day-old-pastry-looking slaveholder and turn to look for Alexander, the one whose witty responses had always supported his arguments, only to find no one. In death he wouldn’t see some new discovery in the paper, or hear a clever anecdote, or remember an occasion from the war, and immediately wish to tell Alexander, only to remember that he would never see his friend’s smile, or his eyes, or the swish of his coat leaving the room ever again.

But he was not dead, nor would he be anytime soon, bar storms or floods or assassinations. And so he was alone. 

Was he cowardly for not attending the hanging? Was he cowardly for agreeing to Hamilton’s plan, and his ultimate demise, in the first place? And was he even cowardly now, for refusing to defend his name, or the name of the one he had loved so dearly?

There were too many questions, and the night sky gave no answers. 

_Good Lord,_ John thought, certain that he sounded too cowardly at least, too desperate for his lover’s long-gone words of advice, 


	2. The Man in the Marketplace

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to @ourfavoriterevolutionarygays on tumblr who asked that I fix this AU. I think the only warnings for this chapter are some discussion of death (by hanging), but otherwise this one isn’t so bad, and it's only going to get more cryptic and hopeful from here on out!

Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Hamilton breathed raggedly against the noose around his neck, staring out at the crowd assembled before him. Whatever his final words should be would certainly be swallowed up in the yells from the crowd, and the hangman looked ready to throw the lever at a moment’s notice. 

He thought of all he could have had, took a deep breath that rattled with tears, and bellowed -

“HANG YOU ALL, I LOVED HIM!”

-and the hangman pulled the lever. 

Hamilton fell into the enclosed darkness beneath the platform, bracing himself for the crack of his neck and the slow strangulation to follow, only… it never arrived. 

Someone had seized his legs from beneath and was holding him upright, keeping his neck mostly free from the noose. Mostly. He still lurched forwards and gasped as it dug into his neck, but despite the pressure on his throat he was fairly certain he wasn’t suffocating. Whoever held his legs had their chin sticking into the side of his thigh most uncomfortably, and he was of a mind to tell them so, were he not having such difficulty breathing, and were he not certain to give away whatever this plot was to the crowd on the other side of the walls by doing so. 

“Quiet Hamilton, please, quiet,” whispered the man holding him up, “Just wait for McHenry, just a moment, just be quiet.”

It felt like an eternity before McHenry arrived, looking rather hassled. “Cut him down,” he whispered.

“I can’t,” snapped the other man (who sounded suspiciously like Benjamin Walker), inadvertently digging his chin into Hamilton’s leg once more. Hamilton held back a spluttering gasp against the noose. “If I drop him, he’ll die.”

“Chin!” whispered Hamilton in pain. Everyone shushed him. 

“Oh blast,” McHenry huffed, pulling a scalpel from his bag. “I’ll do it myself.” Hamilton’s eyes widened in fear. McHenry took no note of this, jumping as high in the air as he could, and cutting the rope of the noose directly above Hamilton’s head. 

Hamilton fell to the ground, his knees giving out, and collapsed into Benjamin Walker’s chest, muffling his coughing in Walker’s cravat. 

“Let me see,” whispered McHenry. 

“Give the poor man a moment,” Walker retorted, holding Hamilton tighter, for which Hamilton was grateful. 

A knock sounded against the wood of the gallows structure, and someone called, “Well? Is he dead or not?”

“He is dead,” said McHenry.

“What??” called the voice. 

“Just a moment - he is dead!” McHenry yelled. He turned back to Hamilton, and raised his chin slightly, inspecting the red line the noose had scraped across his neck. He felt around the back of Hamilton’s neck, and, finding nothing amiss, nodded. “Take his legs,” he whispered to Walker.

“What?” Hamilton hissed. 

“Just act as if you were dead,” Walker whispered to him, sweeping his feet out from underneath him while McHenry lifted from under his arms. “And do us a favour and breathe as little as possible.” Hamilton was still a little preoccupied with the air returning to his lungs and the flight-or-fight instincts running through his body, but he caught most of the requests, and so closed his eyes and tried to stay still. Walker and McHenry carried him out into the fresh air, the sound of the raucous crowd filling the air once more. They carried him, somewhat unevenly, for several paces until his back hit what felt like a wooden cart, and a sheet was drawn over his body. 

“NON!” someone was screaming, “NO PLEASE! Please, sirs, he was my friend!” 

“Marquis,” said McHenry gently, “You must let him go.”

“Please,” Lafayette’s voice broke, “Let me bid him farewell.”

Apparently nobody objected, as the sheet was drawn aside, and Lafayette’s head collided with Hamilton’s chest, shaking with sobs. _Do not move,_ Hamilton thought, _move and you die._

“Alexander,” Lafayette whispered, “I am so sorry. I knew not what to do, I was a fool. Can you ever forgive me?”

Hamilton wished to say yes. He wished to break his cover just to embrace Gilbert and reassure him that he had done nothing wrong. But to do so would be to call disaster upon himself… again. And so he held himself as still as possible, hating every second of Lafayette’s pain.

“Fare you well Alexander,” the Frenchman said, “God bless you.”

Someone re-positioned the sheet, and the cart began to rattle away, shaking Hamilton’s limbs. The sounds of the crowd faded as he was dragged over uneven cobblestones, then less-even gravel, then grass. Finally, the cart came to a halt, and the sound of a shovel striking frosted ground sounded through the cold. 

“You’re free Hamilton,” said a voice, far too close to his ear. Hamilton jumped and swore, in a way not really becoming of a dead man. 

He opened his eyes and pulled the sheet from his head, taking in his surroundings. Night was falling, as was a thin carpeting of snow in a clearing which he supposed to be outside of the city limits of Philadelphia. McHenry was beginning to dig what looked suspiciously like a grave. 

“So,” said Hamilton, a little too calmly, “Is this a plot to murder me yourselves, or help me escape?”

“Dear God man,” said Walker, “What do you take us for?”

“Lawful men?” Hamilton suggested.

Walker shook his head. “Lawful men don’t let their fellow aides die on scaffolds for harmless escapades, no matter what the law says.”

McHenry looked up. “Lawful men don’t always understand everyone’s hearts, but they don’t let themselves become murderers over it.”

“Who else knows I’m alive?” Hamilton shifted into a sitting position, shivering slightly. 

“It was the Baron’s idea,” said Walker with a smile, “After what North told him last night. Other than them, everyone else believes you to be dead - that is, until we smuggle you to the Baron’s quarters tonight and ask Laurens to attend.” Walker smiled, “He is going to be so delighte-”

“No,” said Hamilton, with all the force of driving a tack into his hand.

“No? What do you mean ‘no’?” McHenry asked. 

“I mean that he cannot know I am alive,” Hamilton protested, “He is _married_! He is needed in the war effort!”

“And he is distraught because he thinks you dead!” argued McHenry.

“And what if someone sees me? What if the news reaches camp? It’s too risky, and I have nothing here anymore. It is simply time to pack myself up and leave once more.”

“Hamilton,” Walker seized him by the shoulders, “You cannot run away from those who love you, who need you.”

“I can if it keeps them safe!” Hamilton countered. His voice dropped to a whisper. “He never told me he was married. I never knew. He said he loved me, certainly, but we never had a future. I cannot lead him false like that any longer.”

“That’s cruel, and you know it,” said McHenry, “And I have only known of you two for three days. Imagine how it is to be-”

“There’s no time,” Hamilton blinked back tears, which was proving to be a too-common occurrence lately.

Walker sighed, “Leave us your uniform then - it goes to the hangman.”

“And what shall I wear?” Hamilton asked incredulously. 

Walker reached for his satchel. “North’s blouse, the Baron’s socks, and du Ponceau’s breeches and coat,” he said, pulling the respective articles from the bag. The sleeves of the blouse were too long, the socks meant for stockier legs, and the coat was very misshapen, but Hamilton made no complaint as he changed into the offered clothing. He surrendered his boots in favor of some tent canvas tied around the socks. “My apologies,” said Walker, a little sheepishly, “No other boots could be spared. But I can lend you some money-”

“-you don’t have to-”

“-yes I do.”

“And take my hat,” added McHenry. “Pull it over your face, and pull up your collar.” Hamilton did so. “There, a perfect vagabond,” his round face held a bittersweet smile. 

“Thank you both, so much,” Hamilton embraced Walker first, then McHenry. “You saved my life, and I don’t know how I could ever repay you both. The same to the Baron,” he straightened up. 

“There will be no paying anyone back,” said McHenry, “It was the least we could do. Now get going before they draw you in the papers, right?”

“Thank you!” Hamilton called, tipping his hat over his shoulder at them. “And don’t tell Laurens!”

He heaved a sigh which billowed into the cold. It was time to go to the one place he thought he would never have to go again. Home. 

***

“Paste,” said John Laurens, looking a little absent-minded as he navigated the crowded marketplace, “Paste, paste, paste.”

“Paste indeed!” Frances agreed, holding his hand from behind and dodging the pedestrians he weaved between. She breathed in the smell of baked rolls as they passed a baker’s stall, a serene smile on her face. “How much do you think we will need?”

Laurens smiled back. “How much are you willing to carry? We have one whole weekend to work on the study before we leave, so we may complete as much as you like.”

They reached the vendor, who was in the midst of demonstrating the stickiness qualities of his product, and had rather quickly gotten his hands stuck together. “May I help you sir?” he inquired, as if nothing was wrong. 

“I should like to purchase some paste, as we are papering our study this weekend,” said Laurens. The vendor needn’t trouble himself with the fact that the paper was actually paintings and drawings of various local creatures, especially not when he was so preoccupied with attempting to get his hands unstuck beneath the table. 

“Certainly,” said the vendor, “Would a full barrel be sufficient?”

“I believe it would,” said Laurens, turning to Frances. “Do you think you could help me carry it?”

“I think that should be fine,” said Francis.

Laurens handed over the money, which the vendor collected two-handed, and then nodded to his assistant to prepare the barrel of paste as he hurried off to clean his hands. Francis muffled a snicker behind her sleeve. 

“Alright sir,” said the assistant, hoisting the barrel over the counter, “Enjoy your papering.”

“My thanks,” said Laurens, taking the brunt of the weight, “Have a good day.”

They set off home, the barrel clearing a good-sized path through the other market-goers for them. “Papa?” asked Francis. 

“Yes?” Laurens replied, attempting to look around the barrel. It was at that moment that he saw the man across from him.

The man was inspecting a display of quills, running a thin finger wistfully over a soft peacock feather. He was dressed rather plainly, in a brown coat and breeches that had been mended several times past their date of expiry, and wore a hat pulled low over his forehead. His curls were braided and powdered around a thin, freckled face, and a very unfortunate, powdered moustache sat beneath his long nose. But it was the man’s eyes that drew John’s attention, the fierce blue looking from under his hat, which struck a familiar chord in his heart. 

It could not be. 

“Do you think we ought to paste the birds at the top, creatures and plants in the middle, and fish at the bottom of the walls?” Francis asked. John made no answer, looking back over his shoulder for the man. “Papa?” she asked. The man looked up from the quills, and his eyes caught John’s. For a moment, Laurens felt stunned, as if a cannon had struck the ground near him. He thought of candlelight reflecting off blue eyes, of reckless charges into battle, of the last hopeless look from the Philadelphia courtroom. Then the man turned, and was gone. 

Laurens realized he had stopped walking, and that Frances was staring at him around the barrel. 

“Papa, is everything alright?” she asked. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”

What if he had? “I doubt as much,” he said, trying for a smile. “I’m sorry my dear, I was just distracted. Let’s… let’s go home.”

They returned home, and set about pasting Frances’s drawings to the study walls, as well as some from the sons of Hopkins, the cook, and some of John’s newer drawings. “Remind me to see if I can find any of my old watercolours when we visit your grandfather and uncle at Mepkin,” he said, dipping a brush in the paste and attempting to think clearly. “But I think we ought to be able to finish this wall at least before we leave on Monday.”

“How long are we visiting around for?” Frances inquired, turning a picture of a leafless tree around to see if it looked better as branching roots instead. John ran a hand through his hair and looked out the window, attempting to focus his mind away from the man in the market. It could not have been who he thought it was. 

“Just over a fortnight my dear,” Laurens passed her a drawing of a cattail. _I knew those eyes,_ he thought, _I would know them through battle, through death even._ “There are plenty of relatives to see, including some new cousins, I am told.”

She pasted the cattail to the wall and took a step back, inspecting it. “It will be good to see them,” she said. “I’ve missed Aunt Martha.”

“What would we all do without Martha?” Laurens replied with a laugh. “She keeps us all sane.” He placed a lily-pad beside the cattail. “Now, I’ll just take a minute to see how Mister Hopkins is coming with lunch, and I shall be back to help with the pasting.”

“I’ll keep working on the plants then,” said Frances. 

John, however, did not go to the kitchen. Nor did he go to the woodshed, where Hopkins may have been collecting wood, or the pantry, where he may have been fetching pickles. Instead John crossed the hall to his own room, and slumped over in his armchair. 

He was going mad. There was no other explanation. 

The man in the marketplace could not have been his Alexander. His dear boy was dead, and he had faced it - had been facing it for years. As much as he almost wanted to entertain the daydreams of introducing Hamilton to Frances, sitting in the garden with him, kissing him one last time… that was all they were: daydreams. 

They had killed him, and Laurens had let them. He wondered whether this life, with its scientific and abolitionist societies, with Frances, with all the relatives he would be travelling off to see on Monday, was worth it in the end. Was this everything his Alexander had wished for him? And if it was, why did it feel so empty without him?

John rose and walked across to the basin on his side-table, pouring in some water and splashing it over his face. There was no time to go mad now. He had held onto these ghosts for far too long. His face still dripping, Laurens retrieved a box from under his bed. His hands trembled as he placed it on his desk, and scrawled a note to leave atop the polished wood - _To Burn_. 

“I have no more need for your letters, Alexander,” he said to the box. “You are dead, and I must face that. I shall visit my family, I shall see my beloved state, and enjoy my time with my daughter, and when I return home I shall set these letters alight, so that we can both rest.” He ran a hand over his face, wiping away water and tears together, and then straightened up. He had work to do before Monday.

***

The blue-eyed man left the quill shop and ducked inside a boarding-house, where the smoky air helped his hat obscure his face. 

“Name?” asked the man at the desk. 

“Faucette,” he said, “John Faucette.”

“And where do you hail from, Mister Faucette?”

“From the West Indies, sir,” said the blue-eyed man.

“Key,” said the man, holding out a room key, “And coin?” John Faucette, if that was indeed his name, handed over the payment for his accommodation. “Welcome to Charleston, Mister Faucette.”

“My thanks,” Faucette nodded, moving around the desk towards the hearth. 

“You alright sir?” asked one of the more tipsy lads smoking around the fire. “You look like yous just seen a ghost!”

The visitor sighed and sat down, helping himself to a newspaper. “I _am_ a ghost, sir,” he said, “And I have only just seen a very old friend.”

The lad chuckled, pushing his shoulder. “Real funny sir, funny indeed. You don’t look anything like a ghost, and that’s a fact.”


	3. A Little Thing Like Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again to @ourfavoriterevolutionarygays on tumblr for being a positively amazing beta-reader, and I hope everyone enjoys the ending! Again, the only warnings for this chapter are for mentions of the death and accusations of sexual assault from the first one.

“More wine?” asked the Baron von Steuben.

“That’s very kind, but I shouldn’t,” John Laurens replied. “I’m already more than half seas over as it is.”

The Baron scoffed good-naturedly. “Then we must fill the ocean properly my boy!” he said with a grin, lifting himself from his chair and crossing the room towards the kitchen in search of more wine. Azor followed the drillmaster, as if to make sure that no harm befell him on the way.

“Don’t drown me yet,” Laurens called. “We’ve still a war to fight.”

“Ah,” said Walker sagely, his feet propped up in the direction of the fire which heated the parlor, “The war can wait.”

Laurens leaned back on the parlor couch with a sigh. He had grown closer to the Baron’s aides these past two years of the war, enough to let himself relax into their company now. The first year or so had been difficult. He had spent the days in attacks of melancholy, unable to speak of the ache in his heart, and trying to avoid anything that would recall memories of his dear lost Alexander. It was like trying to avoid himself.

That was likely why he had avoided William North and Benjamin Walker initially. He knew, at least vaguely, that they were partnered in some way, and the Baron was involved, at least in some capacity. At the time, he had wanted nothing to do with that. If he could deny his heart, push it far enough away, perhaps he could pretend Alexander’s death held no fault of his own.

As it turned out, that was worse, and he fell into such a painful guilt that one night he arrived at the Baron’s headquarters after wandering around in the snow for the better part of an hour, and asked if he could have a drink.

There had been several drinks since, because, as North had said, the antidote to loss was solace in company, not the pushing-away of friends. Though he had never grieved outright before the Baron’s aides, he did feel as if every action of theirs was a reassurance. When Walker sat on von Steuben’s lap, or played with North’s hair in front of him, or when du Ponceau fell asleep against Laurens’s shoulder, he took it as a sign that they trusted him - more than that - that they accepted him.

Du Ponceau stretched his arms above his head with a yawn on the chair across. “I had better bid you all goodnight,” he said with a smile. “I’ve a lot to do tomorrow. Pleasant dreams!”

“I do wish,” muttered Laurens as the young secretary left the room.

“For dreams?” asked Walker, from where he was wedged between Laurens and North on the couch.

“For pleasant ones in particular,” said Laurens. “They seem a rare commodity.”

“Well that’s a shame,” said Walker. He said no more, but his expression seemed genuine enough that Laurens took the risk.

“He always dies again,” he said quietly. “In my dreams that is. It’s….” He fumbled for words, well aware that he had had quite enough wine. “It’s unjust.”

North nodded silently. “Much about this world is unjust,” he said. “And his death was the least deserved of all, if I may say. No man should die for loving.”

“But we do,” Laurens exclaimed, a little loud as if to combat the tears rising in his eyes. “We die every day in war for the love of our country, or in duels for the love of honour, or in accidents for the love of adventure! But Alexander should never have had to die for me. I’m not worth that-”

“Now Laurens!” cried Walker. “I know you are hurting, but you mustn’t say that. You are worth a great deal, and you mustn’t bargain lives like that.”

“He gave his life for mine,” John whispered, hastily wiping away tears with the back of his hand. “You cannot tell me it was well worth the bargain.”

“Then you must make it worth the bargain, if that is how you must calculate it,” said North. “Avenge him by doing good in this world. Avenge him in happiness and kindness, if you must avenge him at all.”

Laurens wiped back more tears. “Oh blast,” he said.

“Indeed,” said Walker, reaching a hand up to pat John’s shoulder.

“You know he could kiss like an angel?” said Laurens, without meaning to. There was a brief second of silence before he let out a breathless, teary laugh as well.

Walker smiled as well, in a shared-bittersweet way. “I never had the privilege of finding that one out.”

“Oh God…” Laurens buried his face in his hands, “Why did I say that?”

“Because you are drunk and we are all grieving?” suggested North.

“It’s no excuse, but it’s true,” said Laurens, certainly feeling drunk and grieving, an odd mixture though it was.

Walker looked at him for a moment, as if he had something to say. It was odd, Laurens thought. If he were more in his right mind he could probably grasp some of Walker’s thinking without words, but at present he was rather unfit for the task. Perhaps it was something about Alexander? But then-

“Would you like a kiss?” asked Walker.

Laurens stared at him for a moment. “Wha- really?”

Walker shrugged. “I’m not as good with words as I might try to be, but you look like you need some reassurance.”

Laurens looked quizzically at North, who nodded. “Uh… alright.”

Walker leaned in, bracing a hand against the pillow on the other side of Laurens, and tilted his head to kiss him. John had to admit, it was reassuring in a way. Walker saw no fault with him, nor with Alexander, and sometimes kisses are just that. It wasn’t romance he tasted on Walker’s lips; it was wine, but it was also unequivocal acceptance, and that was very good too.

Laurens pulled back first, muttering a “Thank you,” as the Baron walked back in with his dog and more wine.

“I see what you mean,” said von Steuben with a smile. “You’ve drunk plenty, but I’ll be damned if I don’t offer you more as a good host.”

***

It was a tropical kind of rain, and it was getting in Alexander Hamilton’s shoes. He frowned and continued walking, internally groaning that he would have to buy a new pair.

He arrived at the office, ducking under the second O which had come loose on the “Bickerton and Associates” sign over the door. As he opened the door to the clerks’ office, Susannah swept past him in the other direction.

Nobody was really certain what the title of Susannah’s job was, other than to go on errands for ink and paper, keep the office properly dusted, and chime into conversations with the precise number of barrels in a shipment or the exact route of ships heading out the next day. You could never catch her looking over your shoulder, but by God, she knew everything that went on in every nook and cranny of the Bickerton and Associates shipping firm. Some of the clerks said she was the daughter of a highwayman and a runaway slave, others that she was the wife of a librarian (oh woe betide!). Whatever the case, she had assumed legendary status within the office.

So it made sense that Hamilton would feel slightly unnerved when she seized his arm on her way past, turning him to face her, and said, “You ought to go in and see him. I’m sorry.”

Something was clearly wrong in Bickerton and Associates. There were no clerks at work yet, though it looked as if Morgans and Fletcher had cleared all the papers from their usually messy desks. There was, however, Mr. Bickerton himself standing in the centre of the room, staring forlornly out the windows at the Christiansted bay. He was an energetic man, despite his greying age, and remained the broad-shouldered figure of the sailor he had been in his youth. But right now he stood perfectly still.

Hamilton walked into the room slowly. His employer took no notice, so Hamilton tapped him on the shoulder. Bickerton jumped visibly. “Is everything alright, sir?” Hamilton asked.

“Storms, my boy,” said Bickerton, still staring out the window. “The world is full of such storms.”

“Indeed it is, sir,” said Hamilton, trying to deduce what Bickerton was looking at. He felt uncomfortable - there was still rainwater in his moustache. “Where are Morgans and Fletcher?”

“They’ve gone home,” said Bickerton sadly. “As you should do too. I’m afraid we must all go home now.”

“Sir?” Hamilton’s voice rose in pitch.

“It’s the ships, Faucette,” said Bickerton, addressing Hamilton by the only name he knew of him. “They’ve all been sunk in a storm off the coast of India. All our silks lie at the bottom of the sea, ruined.” This was the most poetic Hamilton had ever heard him. “Bickerton and Associates shipping is finished.”

“All the ships?” Hamilton was in disbelief.

“Every one.” Bickerton finally broke his stare out the rainy window and turned to Hamilton, placing a hand on his shoulder. “I’m sorry Faucette,” he said. “I know you worked your hardest for this company, and truth be told, you saved my arse more times than I care to count. You’re a brilliant clerk and a wizard with the finances, but even you can’t control the winds.”

Hamilton, who was rapidly counting his own finances in his head to calculate how long he had to find another position as a clerk, nodded. “I would if I could sir,” he said. The rain drummed a little harder on the window. “What will you do now, if I may ask?”

“I suppose I ought to assist my brother with builders business in Nevis,” said Bickerton. “You don’t happen to know how to build a house, do you Faucette?”

“I’m afraid not sir, but I’m certain I could learn if required.” As politely as Hamilton attempted to speak, he would not be building houses. There was a line, and this was where he drew it.

Bickerton shook his head, “No, that wouldn’t do, you’re too good a clerk to lose you to the building profession.”

“I’m flattered.” Hamilton paced to his desk and began collecting his stationary, folding the blank papers into his bag.

“Say…” said Bickerton, turning towards him again, “How well do you like Charleston?”

“Charleston, Nevis?”

“No, Charleston, South Carolina,” said Bickerton, an idea dawning on his face. “I have a brother-in-law, one Edward Smytheson, who manages some shipping there. If you would like, I could send you with a letter of recommendation to him, if you haven’t another position lined up, that is.”

Hamilton froze, and turned slowly from his desk. Charleston, South Carolina… fate really did work in strange ways. He knew a man there too, a man who had probably forgotten him since Cornwallis’s surrender in favour of his surely-beautiful wife and numerous blue-eyed children, and who still haunted the best of his dreams.

But then again, this position sounded better than the little he could get here on St. Croix, where his shoes leaked and the chances of becoming the gentleman he had been so close to being had diminished in the past ten years. He had died on the gallows all those years ago, and been reborn as John Faucette, a man who could never be the gentleman that Alexander Hamilton could have. As a rule, he was skeptical when life handed out second chances, but maybe, just maybe, this one was genuine.

He showed a little more excitement than he felt. “Sir, that sounds like a splendid opportunity - I would be honoured, not to mention eternally grateful.”

Bickerton brushed off his thanks with a wave. “I would hardly see your talents go to waste, Faucette!”

And just like that, for the second time in his life, Alexander Hamilton was bound for the newly United States of America with nothing but a bookbag, some leaking shoes, and some measure of hope for the future.

***

“Blast!” John yelled, to the amusement of multiple women, not least of all Frances. He sucked on his thumb, still sore from where he had pricked it with the needle.

“You’re not a pincushion, Papa!” exclaimed Frances, trying not to laugh at his pain.

“And the needle is by no means a bayonet,” smirked his sister. Laurens made a face at her, which broke into a smile. As much as Martha poked fun at him, he did love her a great deal. No matter what happened, Martha was there for him. He had written her in various panics over how to raise a child, and she had always applied the common sense necessary for the situation, just as she had as they figured out how to take care of their siblings together after their mother passed.

Martha had organized the entire visit as well, timing the arrival of their in-laws of the Manning clan with the weeks when Mary Eleanor’s husband’s duties as Governor were not so pressing, so that they could all spend time together. Little did John know, that would involve Frances teaching him how to sew.

“It’s just like this,” she said, demonstrating a stitch. Martha mirrored it on John’s other side. John tried again, and though the stitch was nowhere near as tidy as theirs, neither laughed at his effort. “Then continue like so,” Frances repeated it, a little to the left. “And you should have a flower when you’ve finished.”

Laurens laughed a little before attempting it again. “I really don’t know how you two do this,” he muttered. The stitches were quite wobbly.

“You’ll get it, I promise,” said Frances, not looking up. Perhaps she felt some measure of victory, being so much better than her father.

“I shall absolutely triumph in our next game of morris, and who shall be laughing then?” John countered.

The sound of wheels echoed from the street outside, making everyone raise their heads. From where he stood by the window, Martha’s husband David Ramsay almost dropped the baby.

“It’s here!” he cried.

Sewing momentarily forgotten, everyone rushed from their seats. Martha took the baby, for fear that it might really be dropped on the stairs. Outside the house lay two things: a star-filled sky, and a carriage carrying several copies of David’s newest book, the History of the American Revolution. As David paid the delivery fee and Martha soothed the baby, John and Frances gathered the copies and brought them back upstairs to the parlor.

“What are you planning to write next?” Frances asked, already several paragraphs in by the time the Ramsays had ascended the stairs.

“I think perhaps a medical treatise,” said David, inspecting his hard work returned from the printshop. He smiled at Frances. “Will you read that just as eagerly?”

“It depends,” said Frances, quite seriously. “Does it have to do with leeches? When I was little, and Papa was sick, he had to have leeches, and I did not much enjoy the experience.”

“If I might have a word,” John cut in, “you came to the door to look, so it really was no fault of mine that you saw that.”

The baby babbled wordlessly.

“Alright,” said David, withholding a laugh, “I promise you I shall not go in-depth on the topic of leeches.”

They slept in the guest-room that night, Frances on the bed and John on the divan. They left the window open so the sun would wake them early enough to get to Snee Farm on time, but it also had the pleasant effect of lighting the room with the stars and the moon.

The carriage ride was just long enough for a game of limericks.

“There once was a scientist man,” said Frances, watching the trees go by outside the window, “who tries just as hard as he can. He papered the walls… with scribbles and scrawls… and they’ll stay there ‘till he’s an old ham.”

“Very good,” said Martha. “But ‘can’ and ‘ham’ are only so-so. Can you do better John?”

“I do hope,” he said. “Alright… there once was a lady named Frances… who scared all the boys at the dances-”

“Unfair!” cried Frances. “If I knew insults were permitted, mine would have been worse!”

“But brighter is she,” said John, “Than the stars are to me… and she taught me to sew up my… eh… pants-es?”

The carriage exploded into collective laughter, but John just sat with a tinge of embarrassment in his chuckles.

Snee Farm, residence of Mr. Charles Pinckney and Mrs. Mary Eleanor Pinckney, was a pretty country plantation, filled with oak and magnolia trees, and the sort of rice fields Laurens remembered from his youth at Mepkin. Frances took in the whole scene with wide eyes, registering in equal parts the beauty and the dark reality underneath. No one commented on the men and women working in the field.

“Are you going to bother Uncle Charles about freeing his slaves this visit?” she asked, once they had a moment to themselves, unpacking their clothes in the guest-rooms. Laurens sighed, leaning back against the wallpaper in the hall between their rooms. He had known Pinckney even before becoming his brother-in-law, having served with him in the war when Charleston fell, and then again in the Continental Congress afterwards. The thing was, Laurens did not really care for Pinckney. Especially not after Pinckney proposed the Fugitive Slave Act, which prevented escaped slaves from benefiting from laws allowing them freedom once they reached another state, rather requiring them to be returned upon the claim of the slaveholder. But he had withheld his disdain at the wedding for Mary Eleanor’s sake, as she assured him that “Politics isn’t everything Jacky - he’s a perfect gentleman to me.”

“I believe I shall wait until we are all at Mepkin and he is unseated a bit,” said John finally. Martha would kill him if he started any fights this early in what was supposed to be a pleasant family gathering. “Why? Did you want to witness such?”

“I like all your arguments,” said Frances. “They’re very forward and rational.”

John remembered suddenly sitting in a tent, quill in hand, with Alexander lying on the cot behind him, yelling endearingly about the need for rationality and eloquence and a concise, persuasive argument. “Convince me!” he had exclaimed.

John focused on the scent of the magnolias to drive Alexander from his head. He didn’t need a ghost demanding poetic rhetoric from him - he had been perfecting these arguments for ten long years. “Thank you,” he said. “I do try.”

Thus ensued the requisite brunches and teas and card-games which re-acquainted everyone with a (very pregnant) Mary Eleanor and Charles. They stayed at Snee Farm for just over a week, before all moving on together to Mepkin, or, as Mary Eleanor called it, the “Ancient Seat of Clan Laurens.” Frances especially found this amusing.

Mepkin was home to a lot of sunburnt childhood memories. Is it so different now? John wondered. He was no longer an ink-stained youth learning how to take care of his siblings and endure the heat in mourning black. He was grown enough to learn how to raise his daughter now. He supposed the difference was that he had been allowed to cry, to remember his mother, whereas now he tried to forget. John neglected to confront Pinckney until Frances began giving him sideways glances whenever they walked near the rice plantations. Though he was burning to at least bring up the topic, he didn’t particularly want to ruin the stiff peace that lay over their family. When at last he did semi-casually broach the topic, it was brushed off by Pinckney, frowned upon by Henry Laurens, and quickly swept under the rug by Harry.

Soon enough, John and Frances were bundled into their carriage, riding through the afternoon to make it home to Charleston. Outside the carriage window, the sun sank low in the Carolina sky, and the stars reluctantly peeked out, certain it was too early to have to illuminate the sky. John promised Frances he would debate better next visit. She seemed to understand.

Night had fallen by the time they reached their rooms, and Frances’s head had started nodding against John’s shoulder. “We’re here,” he said gently. She blinked. “I’ll just pay the driver,” he said, shifting to open the door.

Laurens stepped onto the pavement, turned around, and almost collided with a passing gentleman. Blue eyes met his under a tricorn hat, powdered hair brushed his face, and he let out a gasp. It was, without a doubt, the man from the marketplace. It was Alexander Hamilton.

This close, John couldn’t fail to see it. Those were those eyes he had stared into so fondly, the pointed nose (slightly more freckled but he couldn’t be moved to complaint by this), the lips he had kissed while his lover hung halfway out a window. His heart pounded, his thoughts frozen in shock.

“Your moustache,” he said quietly. “It’s terrible.”

“Excuse me?” said the man.

“Alex?” John’s voice cracked. Perhaps he was mad, and confronting some stranger about his moustache, and they would call him a madman and confine him to bed, and-

“John?” breathed the other man.

Laurens muffled an impulsive scream in the back of his glove, one hand still digging into Hamilton’s shoulder. “Papa?” came Frances’s voice from inside the carriage. “Is everything alright?” She clambered out the door, parasol in hand.

“I… I thought you were dead, Alex!” said Laurens, quite louder than necessary, taking a step back to take in Hamilton’s full appearance. “Dear Lord, I thought you were executed!” His heart felt so light it might lift him off his feet.

“Did you really think I would let a little thing like death stop me?” Hamilton asked, quirking his eyebrow in a familiar wry gesture.

“Who… what… executed?” Frances squinted at Hamilton for a moment, before gasping. Without warning, she pointed her parasol at him, a murderous look on her face. “It’s YOU, isn’t it?” she snarled, stepping between him and Laurens. “Don’t come a step closer to him, or I’ll batter you to bits!”

“Frances!” Laurens yelled, while Hamilton stepped back with a cry of “God’s wounds!”

“I’m not playing!” Frances growled, angling the parasol higher.

“Frances - what - everybody inside!” Laurens exclaimed, “We are not starting a brawl in the street!” He hurried to pay the driver before rather forcefully ushering Hamilton and Frances inside.

“Why are we taking him inside?!” Frances demanded.

“The violent child is right, why are you taking me inside?” Hamilton asked. “Isn’t your wife here?”

“My wife?” Even in the dark, Laurens’s confusion was evident in his expression. Once the initial shock wore off, he supposed he would be unable to stop himself from kissing every inch of Hamilton’s face, but for the moment confusion was keeping him sane. He pushed his daughter and lover into the parlor, lit a candle, and collapsed into a chair.

“Frances first,” he said, one hand bracing his head. “Why are you threatening him with your parasol?”

“Because…” blustered Frances, one hand playing with her dress, “Because he’s the one that did it! All those years ago! He… he…” she took a breath, “He took advantage of you in the army.”

The candle sputtered a bit and kept burning in the ensuing silence. “Frances,” said John gently, “where did you hear that?”

She looked down at the fabric of her skirt. “Some of the servants were gossiping at Mepkin. They said an officer tried to… you know… and was hanged for it, and you were acting so distracted, I didn’t know what to do… I thought perhaps you were having an attack of nerves, you know, thinking about it, and I planned to go to the library and find a book about nervous attacks when we got back, but then he showed up, so why did you let him in?!” She was so worked up she had crumpled most of the skirt in her lap.

“Frances,” John tried to measure his words carefully, “I do hope I have taught you enough to know that gossip is often false and always rude. The fact is, Alexander Hamilton did not take advantage of me.” He had to stop for a moment to relish those words he hadn’t been able to say for years. Across the room, Hamilton laughed weakly. “He only took the blame.”

“Oh,” said Frances, her eyes wide.

“And I cannot force you to keep that quiet,” said John, quieter, “but I also cannot lie to you.”

“You think I would turn you two in?” Frances asked, childishly indignant. “I would much rather you be in love with a colonel than taken advantage of by one.”

Hamilton gave a bitter laugh. “That makes precisely one of you in this world, my dear,” he said. Frances wrinkled her nose slightly at being called my dear, but said nothing of it.

“Your turn,” she said to Hamilton. “How are you alive and well?”

Hamilton pulled the battered hat from his head, looking older as the candlelight hit his hair-powder. “I was saved,” he said. “By the grace of God, and also the grace of the Baron von Steuben.”

“The Baron knew?!” John gasped, feeling something like betrayal stirring under the shock. “Who else?”

“McHenry and Walker saved me from falling and pretended to bury me,” said Hamilton, tracing the brim of the hat with a finger. “But I believe North also knew, and perhaps du Ponceau.”

Laurens recalled Walker’s concerned expression before he had kissed him. So Walker had been just as conflicted as he had, forced to mourn the loss of a man he knew was alive and well. “They are going to regret that, but that is an issue for another time,” he said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I still need to know why you didn’t return.”

“And I still need to know about your wife,” said Hamilton, not without a trace of injury in his voice.

“What about her?” Laurens asked, “She passed on before the end of the war.”

“Oh,” said Hamilton. “My sincerest condolences to you both.” Frances and John nodded soberly. “But why could you not tell me you were married?” Hamilton asked, his eyes on the candle. “Was I… was I just an adventurous dalliance, making the war pleasant before you returned home to your dear-”

“Alexander, please stop.”

“Why?” Hamilton seemed in no fit state to stop. In fact, ten years of confused betrayal were shining in his eyes. “I didn’t come back,” he said. “I sailed to St. Croix and never looked back because I knew you had a future. You had someone to come home to, to care for you, and I didn’t want to be the one to take that away from you.”

“It was a marriage of honour,” blurted John, covering his face with his hands. “Given the circumstances, the most honourable thing to do was be married, so I did.”

“What?” said Frances.

“Oh,” said Alexander.

“What do you mean, marriage of honour?” demanded Frances. John made no answer. “Papa?”

“I mean what I say,” said John, backed into the proverbial corner.

“Did you love her?” Frances asked, rumpling her skirt again.

“Frances, dear,” John wondered how to explain this. “You know there are different kinds of love. The kind of love we feel for family is different from the love we feel for friends, or a spouse. I did love your mother, quite a lot, but it was the sort of love one feels for a friend.” He ran a hand through his hair, attempting to straighten out his thoughts. “You are great friends with Anastasie de Lafayette, yes?”

“I am,” said Frances, sparing a glance for the letter resting on the mantle which was likely from her friend in France.

“And you would go to the ends of the earth for her, and you wish her well, and in those respects, you love her?” Frances nodded. “But you would not wish so much to marry her, would you?”

Frances laughed a little, “No, she is much too polite to marry.”

Hamilton snorted. “She’s inherited plenty from her father, that’s for certain,” he said.

“Well, that is what a marriage of honour requires,” said John. “Your mother was my dear friend and she deserved so much better than to marry me, but perhaps we don’t always receive what is deserved.”

“Hear hear,” said Hamilton.

“At least you didn’t draft the Fugitive Slave Act,” said Frances in consolation. “That is not a redeeming quality in a husband.”

“I… well, thank you,” said John. Perhaps that was Frances’s way of accepting what he had told her. They sat in silence for a moment longer, but with a certain air of newfound peace this time.

Finally - “I should get back to the boarding house,” said Hamilton, moving to stand, “I have work in the morning.”

“Where are you working?” it was surreal, like no time had passed at all since he had last seen his dear boy, and yet eternities of time they still had to catch up on.

“Smytheson shipping,” said Alexander. “Granted, it’s not the illustrious post-war position I had in mind, but I’ve been there two weeks and I already find myself in line for a promotion, so there’s hope for me yet.”

“There’s hope for you always, it seems.” John rounded the table and offered Alexander a hand, smiling gently and pulling him to his feet into an embrace.

“Papaaa,” drawled Frances in annoyance.

“Leave him be,” laughed Alexander, “He’s waited ten years for this blasted hug.”

“You two are sappy,” she retorted, then softened slightly. “But I’m glad you’re not a villain,” she told Hamilton. He nodded over her father’s shoulder. “Goodnight!”

As her footsteps sounded on the stairs, Hamilton pulled Laurens closer. “That’s going to be a lot for a young girl to take in,” he whispered, “You ought to talk to her, you know, offer to answer questions or whatever it is good parents do.”

“You have my word, I will in a moment,” said John, remembering the smell of Alexander’s pomade and the way his arms around John’s waist held him upright. He inclined his head and kissed his cheek for good measure. “Gracious God I missed you,” he whispered.

“I missed you too,” Hamilton’s hand slid down his back. “To the point of distraction.”

“Hey,” John laughed, pulling Alexander’s hand up again to rest on the back of his vest. Hamilton leaned his head on his shoulder. Upstairs, Frances was humming as she changed for bed. “What are we going to do, now that you’ve returned?” John whispered, closing his eyes to the world for a peaceful moment.

“I’ve no idea yet,” said Alexander, and John could hear the smile in his voice. “But I am certain we will figure it out. Isn’t that grand?”

It may have been the grandest sentiment they had heard in a long, long while.


	4. Epilogue

As the clocks chimed a soft midnight, a spectral redcoat sat atop the kitchen table and reached for the jar of cookies in the centre. He was beautiful, to be sure, but there was something unearthly about him as well, something that couldn't be pinned down.

"You," said an accusatory voice from across the room. He looked up. In the doorway stood another redcoat, this one ghastly pale and holding his neck at an odd angle. He was glaring a glare that would have withered wildflowers.

"Hello Death. Would you like a cookie?" asked the redcoat on the table.

"I don't have time for games, Love," said the redcoat named Death, still glaring. "You did this to the timeline, and I want to know how."

"Is it really so bad?" asked the redcoat named Love idly, taking a bite of a cookie. "I hardly interfered at all, in my view."

"You've screwed over my plans and the natural order of the world," said Death, his appearance flickering slightly to that of a man dressed in black with a bloodstained bandage around his jaw.

"I don't know... I think I like it that way..." said Love. 

"ENOUGH GAMES. TELL ME HOW." The bandage stayed in place, but Death's voice somehow still reverberated loudly around the room. "HE WAS SUPPOSED TO DIE ON THE GALLOWS THAT DAY. I WILLED IT. SO HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO STOP ME?"

"Oh Death," said Love. He almost sounded bittersweet. He now looked more like a young man in a tweed suit with his hair parted severely down the middle than a redcoat. "You really don't understand my concept at all, do you? You think Love is just what people do under blankets, maybe, at most, a signature on a form. But you're a fool, Death," he whispered, grinning widely and placing a cookie in Death's hand. "You're a fool because it _was_ love that saved Alexander Hamilton on the gallows that day. It was the love of the Baron for his _sans-culottes_ , the love of McHenry for his friends, and the love of Walker for those he trusted above all others, that saved him. It was for Laurens' love of his country that he continued to fight, and it was Frances' love of her father that showed him he could be as brave as she thought he was. Humans have love for everything, Death. For their friends, their family, the things they fight for. But you? You can't understand that, and so you lost to me."

"That's... that's wrong," blustered Death, now looking like a man in a toga with a laurel wreath. "You're not supposed to win, I am!"

"Don't be a sore loser, my friend," said Love. He paused and then grinned wider, his appearance back as a redcoat. "I might just get a taste for it."

Death turned around and stormed out of the kitchen, a movement that revealed all the bloody knives stuck in his back.

"Checkmate," said Love with a smile, taking another bite of his cookie.

Upstairs, Alexander Hamilton, having decided to stay the night, wrapped an arm around John Laurens' shoulders and smiled in his sleep.


End file.
